


Linger

by plumtrees



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Akakuro Week 2015, Dreams vs. Reality, Dual Personality, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-22 20:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3742345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumtrees/pseuds/plumtrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Tetsuya's smile turned mysterious, as if he was privy to a potentially world-shattering secret. “Some people say that dreams are the unconscious part of you trying to say something to the real you.” He waved his hands around as if preparing for the finale of a magic trick. “A reflection of your deepest desires.” </p>
  <p>I continued to match his stare with my unimpressed expression and replied, with a perfectly flat tone, “My deepest desire is to go out and have dango with you?”</p>
  <p>“This <em>is</em> your dream, Akashi-kun.”</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> The only prompt for AkaKuro Week 2015 that refused to be put down. Day 3: Dreams.

The second I saw Tetsuya, I knew that I was dreaming. 

There was no jolt into wakefulness that came with that realization. Just me, frozen in the doorway of my own room, hand on the knob, staring at a face I hadn’t seen in months. Slowly, I closed the door and leaned back against the wooden panel.

Heavy silence passed, and it amplified the fact that there was only one person in the room who was breathing. 

Sunlight filtered through the blinds and created a striped pattern on the sheets. He sat on the edge of the bed, back perfectly straight, hands folded primly on his lap. He was solid enough that the sunlight followed the curves and dips of his body, but the shadow he cast was faint, like passing light through a cloudy sheet of plastic.

His eyes were rolling lazily in their sockets, passing glances around my room. His skin didn’t have the ashy pallor of death. In fact, as a whole, he looked much healthier than he ever did when he was alive.

When my gaze returned to his face, he was already staring at me, expectant and amused. I cleared my throat to remove the lump that settled there the moment our eyes met.

“Why are you here, Tetsuya?”

“You think I have more say in this than you do, Akashi-kun?” Tetsuya asked in reply, eyes twinkling. “It’s your dream, after all.”

 _That’s right. This is only a dream._ I reassured myself, but the ball of tension that welled up in my stomach did not unravel even the slightest. As far as I knew, this was the first time I’ve been this aware in a dream. It was just a little bit disconcerting.

“You don’t look too well, Akashi-kun.” he said, clearly refusing to be ignored in favor of my thoughts.

“At least I’m still _alive_ , Tetsuya.” I snapped, and with those words, the weight of _everything_ that's happened just five days ago came crashing like a tidal wave.

He doesn’t reply, and somehow the silence is more unnerving than hearing the voice of a dead person.

-

_”Are you sure you should go? The weather reports say the storm’s only going to get worse as the day progresses.”_

_”It’s fine, Akashi-kun. We’ve been planning this for two months. I put off an outing with my teammates for you.”_

_A chuckle. “Don’t be so petulant, Tetsuya. I’m only expressing my concern. I’ve been waiting so long to see you as well.”_

_”I’ll be careful, don’t worry. I’ll meet you at the station? The one closest to your house?”_

_”I’ll be waiting. See you soon.”_

-

“Your room looks a lot more different than what I imagined it to be.” Tetsuya commented much later, a dry attempt to break the awkward silence. He stood up and began to walk around. I noticed that the mattress didn’t shift as he stood, as if there was no weight that held it down in the first place. “I expected something a bit more…traditional,” he commented, running a finger across a shelf stacked with books.

“The original Akashi main house is located in Kyoto. Two generations ago, they relocated to Tokyo for convenience, since a lot of the work is centralized around here. They adopted a more Western taste, because it was what my grandmother preferred.”

Tetsuya hummed absentmindedly at my explanation and continued his exploration of what was supposedly my private space. I’ve had dreams of Tetsuya in the past, but they were rarely ever this vivid. Dreams of Tetsuya were built on memories: Teikou Middle School, or the Winter Cup. Right now, we were in my room in the Akashi Tokyo House, at what was most likely mid-afternoon, a place and time that didn’t hold any particular significance as far as the two of us were concerned.

I frowned and slowly walked over to him, feeling weary even though I’m supposedly asleep. 

“I’m impressed by your personal collection, Akashi-kun.” Tetsuya complimented. “Some of these books I could never find anywhere else.”

“As you said, Tetsuya, that shelf houses only _my_ personal collection.” I explained, not at all concerned about whether I sounded like I was bragging or not. “The Akashi family library holds much rarer titles.”

Tetsuya pointed at a row of books on economics and financial investments. “Some of these don’t really seem to be your type. The spine’s barely cracked.”

I looked around the room and wondered if he knew that the place was as foreign to me as it was to him. “My father did a lot of redecorating after I transferred to Rakuzan. I wasn’t around for most of it, so he took a couple of liberties.” 

His eyes wandered to me at the mention of my father. That was strange. I don’t remember ever having shared anything about my father with Tetsuya before.

_Then again, this is the Tetsuya of my imagination. Of course he would know things that the real Tetsuya would not._

He stared at me, the silence stretching out for longer than I was comfortable with. Even now, I didn’t know how I felt about being observed so intently.

Suddenly, his face broke out into a small smile. “Would Akashi-kun like to go for some dango?”

-

_Tetsuya’s already an hour late._

_This is Kuroko Tetsuya’s voice mail, please leave a message after the beep. Thank you._

_Tetsuya? It’s Akashi. You haven’t been answering your phone. Have you gotten on the train yet? Call or text me when you're settled, alright?_

_Breaking News: The low visibility has caused several traffic accidents in Tokyo. The victims have yet to be identified. People are advised to stay indoors._

_This is Kuroko Tetsuya’s voice mail, please lea––_

_End call. Redial. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Click._

_This is Kuroko Tetsuya’s voice mail––_

_This is Kuroko Tetsu––_

_The identity of one of the victims has been confirmed._

_This is––_

_Kuroko Tetsuya, a high school student._

-

“Akashi-kun?”

Tetsuya’s voice rudely ripped me out of my thoughts. I ignored his concerned stare and nudged him to walk farther away from the road. He allowed himself to be herded, but continued to pin me with that too-knowing gaze.

“You’re restless. Is something wrong?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t expect that we could actually go out. Or that this would be so realistic.” It was _true_ , at least. The Tokyo of my dreams was exactly the same as I would remember it: no store out of place, nothing unusual happening. There was even a crowd of people walking around.

Tetsuya stared at me for a moment longer before smiling. “Shouldn’t you be _concerned_ that your dreams are realistic? Wouldn’t that mean that you lack imagination?”

Again, I shrugged. I wasn’t in any mood to reciprocate his teasing at the moment. Perhaps when we’re safely out of the street… “I don’t remember most of my dreams. I wouldn’t know what they’re like normally.”

“You don’t spend time in the mornings trying to recall the dream you had?” Tetsuya asked, like it was the most normal thing in the world for a person to do so. I raised an eyebrow at him.

“What would be the point of that? It’s just a dream. Remembering it or not would not affect my life in any way.”

His smile turned mysterious, as if he was privy to a potentially world-shattering secret. “Some people say that dreams are the unconscious part of you trying to say something to the real you.” He waved his hands around as if preparing for the finale of a magic trick. “A reflection of your deepest desires.” 

I continued to match his stare with my unimpressed expression and replied, with a perfectly flat tone, “My deepest desire is to go out and have dango with you?”

Then, as if a switch had been flicked, his smile turned sad, and the sound of a car whizzing by flooded my ears like water. 

“This _is_ your dream, Akashi-kun.”

-

_Beep. You have four new messages._

_Akashi. Akashi I’m not sure if you’ve heard but…something’s happened. Akashi where are you? Your butler said you weren’t at home. Akashi? Please call me as soon as you can. I can’t travel out in this weather but I just want to know that you’re––_

_Beep. You have three new messages._

_Aka-chin? Aka-chin, please answer your phone. Muro-chin said something about Kuro-chin but it’s not true. Kuro-chin’s there with you, right? He was supposed to visit you today, right? Ne, Aka-chiiiii––_

_Beep. You have two new messages._

_AKASHI YOU ASSHOLE. TETSU WAS SUPPOED TO SEE YOU TODAY, WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU STOP HIM?! OI, AKASHI PICK UP YOUR FUCKING PHO––_

_Beep. You have one new message._

_Akashicchi. It’s not true, right? Kurokocchi’s there in Kyoto with you, right? It’s gotta be someone else. Akashicchi, tell me Kurokocchi’s safe. Akashicchi, plea––_

_Beep. You have no new messages._


	2. Dream of Me

_“Seijuurou, I will not waste both out times with dry sympathy and petty attempts at comfort. You are attending the funeral and that’s final. One that day, you were not the only one to experience a loss; Kuroko-kun’s parents lost a child, their only child. The least you can do is to honor his memory with them. Get over yourself. I expect you to be ready in half an hour.”_

_His son did not respond immediately, head still lowered and shoulders bent in an undignified slump. It almost made him look too young, too afraid; nothing like the man he formed to become the heir of the Akashi name._

_Finally, his son looked up at him, eyes dryer than he expected, red orbs dazed and unfocused, as if he had just woken up from a particularly deep sleep._

_“Understood,” was the only answer the Akashi patriarch received before his son stood and walked towards the door._

-

Another car whizzed by behind me and Tetsuya followed it with his eyes. “Akashi-kun, you may want to calm down.”

The scenery had begun to shift. If this was my doing, then I didn’t know how I was doing it. I just knew we needed to get _away_. Around me I heard crashes, people screaming, and car alarms going off. Green little seedlings shot up from the concrete, cracking the gray pavement and replacing it with the colors of nature, deep browns and greens, like watching an entire forest grow in time-lapse.

Tetsuya reached over and took my hand. I squeezed it instinctively until he winced. “Calm down. This is your unconscious after all, you can’t control it, but you’ll be fine.”

“ _I’ll_ be fine?” I wheezed out, unable to help the high note of panic in my voice.

He moved closer and lifted his other hand to cradle around the back of my head, pulling down and burying my face into his shoulder. “It’s Akashi-kun’s unconscious. I trust it.”

“You’ve never been in my head, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” The comment was dry and sullen, but whatever Tetsuya did was working. I closed my eyes and breathed in Tetsuya’s scent until the world stopped shaking and there was nothing but silence and Tetsuya.

When I opened my eyes, we were no longer in the city, but a forest. The leaves burned red, with some specks of yellow and the occasional pale green. It was autumn, but for some reason a single sakura tree, in all its fully-bloomed glory, stood above Tetsuya and I, raining petals with each gentle whiff of the wind.

Kuroko brushed his fingers along my hair, I assume to dislodge sakura petals. “I believe your dream cherry blossoms are a bit off-season.”

“As you’ve said countless times, it’s _my_ dream. I do what I want.” I said roughly, if only to shake off the residual unease. It was only then that I could actually look myself and Tetsuya up and down. “You look nice, by the way.”

While Tetsuya always looked nice on a regular basis, he was especially exquisite in traditional wear, all my personal biases aside. He wore a plain pastel blue yukata to match his eyes and hair, with and ornate, royal blue, silver-embroidered haori to complement it. He smiled down at my clothes and felt along the fabric of my own garb: a white yukata with a hand-painted dragon decorating the bottom half, and a plain red haori. “I appreciate your tastes in formal wear.” Tetsuya praised before curling a hand around my elbow, which I immediately crooked to accommodate him. 

“So, where are we?”

“Tadasu no Mori.” I answered automatically, feeling my throat constrict at the sight. “I was going to bring you here. When the weather had calmed down.”

_We were going to go for the festival, and this was supposed to be how it went. You dressed in a yukata I had prepared for you, your colors stark against the warm colors of autumn, you holding onto me like this as we walked along the stairs up the temple._

_You alive and well._

Tetsuya looked around, completely enamoured by the scenery and oblivious to my thoughts. “You always did have good date ideas.”

I forced a smile to look as genuine as possible when he turned to me. “Thank you. My mother was a hopeless romantic. Must have gotten it from her.”

Tetsuya’s smile slipped off his face, and he laid his other hand companionably against my arm. In that moment, it was reaffirmed to me how futile it was to lie to him.

-

_When Midorima saw Akashi, he almost ran to him in his relief, but he stopped when he caught sight of his face. His eyes were clear, not the slightest bit red-rimmed or sunken, like he hadn't lost any sleep or cried at all in the past few days. It was when Akashi moved closer that Midorima saw two red orbs staring back, and it finally dawned on him._

_“We've switched.” Akashi confirmed. “It usually happens in moments of great duress.”_

_Great duress was an understatement. Midorima thought, looking around at the crowd of people gathered for Kuroko's funeral. For someone who was known for having a weak presence, his absence was a gaping hole in the crowd, a cloud of awareness hung over everyone: Kuroko was gone, he was not coming back, he wasn't just missing because of his misdirection._

_Akashi's eyes wandered over to Seirin and Midorima followed his gaze. The usually lively team was gathered in a tight circle, farther away from everyone else, heads hung low and completely silent._

_“I almost feel remorseful.” Akashi began. “Kuroko was a good friend, but my counterpart held much deeper feelings for him.”_

_Midorima's gaze returned to Akashi's face, unable to find words for the situation. He was not sure if he was ready to deal with further complexities, given recent events._

_“You’re different people. You said so yourself.” He tried, but Akashi did not reply._

_He could feel the collective gazes of Kise, Murasakibara, and Aomine from varying points in the room, but he could not bring himself to gather with them and share their grief the way Seirin does. They were only a team for a short while, until they turned against each other and broke Teikou from the inside. The friendship was restored, but they were little more than a cracked mirror at this point. Instinctively, he tailed Akashi as he bowed to Kuroko’s altar and offered condolences to his family._

_Soon he was browsing through pictures of Kuroko from middle school, a right they offered him when they recognized him as someone from Teikou. Midorima had already gone through the ritual, it was only marginally less painful the second time around, but Akashi didn't even seem the least bit fazed as he ran fingers through smiles and shadows of happiness. He paused at a photo from their first victory at Nationals._

_“Most of the time I spent with Kuroko wasn’t even_ me _. Many of my most meaningful memories I have with him are those I see through the eyes of someone else.” He lifted a hand, as if to touch the Kuroko in the photo, but stopped short, as if he was unable to bring himself to do so._

_Midorima did not pretend to understand. How could he?_

-

Tetsuya was holding my hand. Solid and warm, it slipped in mine like it was the most natural thing in the world for us to be joined together like this. Playfully, he swung our linked hands as we walked. He chewed contentedly, dango sauce on his bottom lip, eyes twinkling, dappled sunlight on his hair; Tetsuya had never looked more beautiful.

He swallowed, poked his bottom lip with the skewer and said, “Do you remember when you first met me?”

I knew it was one of those questions that didn’t really warrant an answer; a question to jog a memory. _Of course I remember._ I thought. Tetsuya was beautiful then, too. Beautiful like a genuine pearl threaded among a necklace of fake ones; unobtrusive, silent, appreciated only by those who can actually _see_ what made him so special, so different.

Our hands paused in mid-swing and his lips twitched in a smile. “Do you remember when _I_ first met you?”

Realization dawned on me. I remembered that too. Tetsuya, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, and face damp with tears he tried to pass off as rainwater. I remember how he glared, the pinpricks his eyes had been reduced to, the fear in his eyes. No, I didn’t like that version of our meeting at all.

“How is the other Akashi-kun?” he asked, the momentum of our hands lowering until it was still between us.

“He’s taken over.” I answered, feeling a phantom numbness creep along my extremities, how it always felt when I switched with my other self. “I’ve just been…drifting I guess. I never liked not being in control to begin with, but recently, consciousness has become a lot less favorable.”

In Tetsuya, I found a deep and nurturing connection. Being overlooked all his life had made him more used to observing other people than being noticed, and while he initially feared me like everyone else, he still stayed. When everyone else dismissed me as a tyrant, as the _other_ Akashi, he saw me as my own person, not like a parasitic growth of my other self.

 _Because I believe that people are always more than what they are at present, what we think of them when we first meet them._ Tetsuya said once, stronger and so much more mature compared to the young middle-schooler who desperately clung to a past that had already slipped away. _People are always works-in-progress, Akashi-kun. They are affected by everything around them, and because everything changes, people will inevitably change as well. Some take longer than others, and you have to respect that. That’s why people always deserve all the chances, all the patience and understanding you can afford to give._

In him, I realized that all the ugly associations I’ve made about people were simply a product of losing my mother, how my father grew painfully distant and demanding after her death, the deep-seated fear of failure. My other self would retreat when faced with my father, when faced with fear, and I bore the brunt of our shared life. I had to be the broken one, so at least one of us could afford to be whole.

I turned to him, confusion clear in the furrow of my brow. “Even after all these months, I still don’t know why you chose _me_.” 

Tetsuya let go of my hand to brush his fingers against my cheek with tender familiarity. I knew he knows what I meant.

“The other Akashi-kun was kind,” he began, thumb brushing along my jaw. “He gave me hope for basketball again. He was kind, patient, and he taught me well, but that was all he was. In essence, he was similar to Aomine-kun. But on that day, he wasn’t really the one who saw me, wasn’t he?”

“It took a while for me to realize it,” Tetsuya continued to look at me in a way that made me feel like I was the only thing he saw, the only thing that mattered, a look nobody has ever graced me with. “And that had made all the difference.”

He entwined our fingers again, and Tetsuya moved to lead me towards the entrance of the temple.

-

_Midorima had always been watching Akashi, whether he was aware of it or not. Years of constant companionship had made him hyperaware to many of Akashi's quirks. Throughout the ceremony his aura remained steady, but as the day wore on, something in his eyes began to flicker. Akashi's shoulders were beginning to slump, and to Midorima it was more noticeable than any verbal indication that there was something wrong. He approaches but Akashi waves him off with a hand._

_“Excuse me,” was all he said, and walked to the general direction of the door._

_He never made it there._

_Akashi’s name tore from Midorima’s throat before he even realized it. Immediately he and three others, their hair indicative of their identities, were kneeling around Akashi’s prone figure like a protective wall. Someone had already called an ambulance, but Midorima knows enough from his father to know what to do, what to check for. Position on back, elevate legs, loosen constrictive clothing, pulse, breathing, airways. He was probably spouting instructions as he went because there were three other pairs of hands on Akashi besides his own and another hand, smaller, gripped his shoulder and whoever owned it was saying: calm down, calm down, Midorin._

_He took a deep breath, just in time to keep the sob from ripping through._

-

“Akashi-kun is such a show-off,” he commented, eyes twinkling as I won him another prize from the gun-shooting booth. The children standing in line behind Tetsuya cheered and giggled as I presented him with a red stuffed bird. He carried it in the same hand that held another stuffed bird, light blue this time.

“This one kind of reminds me of Kagami-kun, don’t you think?” Tetsuya said, watching the two toys that sat comfortably in his hand. In a flash, the red bird was in my hand, and I was looking around for the nearest garbage can.

“Stay here while I throw it in the trash.” I said, squeezing the toy hard, dangerously close to popping the stitches. Tetsuya laughed, a sweet, melodious sound, and grabbed at my yukata sleeve, keeping me by his side. I let the teasing slide and resentfully dropped the bird back into his waiting hand.

Instead of landing safely in his hands, the bird fell to the ground, followed by his light blue counterpart. 

I thought he had only lost his grip on them, but as I bent to pick them up, I stopped when I noticed that I managed to bend down without Tetsuya having let go of my arm.

I looked up at him, and he was looking down at his own hands like they were someone else’s. I shouldn’t be able to see his face from this angle but I could. His hands were erratically swinging between translucency and opacity. I focused on his face and saw no fear, only...resignation?

But Tetsuya, despite his awareness of his own time limit, smiled a smile he reserved to comfort and project calmness, and knelt in front of me. “Would you mind placing them inside my haori’s pocket, Akashi-kun?”


	3. And Wake Up

_“How is he?”_

_“We’re not quite sure what happened. His symptoms indicate that he’s in a comatose state.”_

_“When will he wake up?”_

_“We’re not sure.”_

-

I obeyed his request with hands too shaky for my comfort. He made no attempt to soothe the tremors. He couldn’t.

We stood awkwardly face-to-face, the bustling of the festival around us slowing to a stop. I paid no mind as the scene vanished in a sea of white.

“Am I dead, Tetsuya?” I wouldn’t be surprised if I was. I wouldn’t mind terribly at all if that was the case.

He glared in the way he did when Daiki would say something mindlessly insensitive. “Akashi-kun, that was not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.” I said, not bothering to hide the harsh edge my voice had taken. “This isn’t a dream, isn’t it? Where are we?”

Tetsuya’s face softened until it was nothing more than the blank expression he usually wore. I was not entirely sure if I preferred this to his previous expression, “Akashi-kun, tell me, what happens after you surrender control to your other self?”

I opened my mouth, and immediately shut it when no answer came to mind. I ducked my head and thought hard, but it was surprisingly difficult, like being asked the mechanics of something as mindless as breathing or blinking.

“An endless blue sky,” _that_ I could remember. “I’m floating,” and that was about as much as I could recall, I admitted, frustrated.

Tetsuya nodded, satisfied, and the scene shifted again. Like rips in a fabric, colors peeked through the slashes in the white space, and suddenly we were in a basketball court. I didn’t need to look up to see the red banner, hung by the parapet and bearing the four kanji that had been burned into our minds for three years, to know exactly where we were.

“When people die, their physical bodies are left to rot away, but the soul,”

The words were punctuated by the squeaks of Tetsuya’s shoes against the pristine floors. Tetsuya, similarly dressed as I in our Teikou basketball uniform, gestured to his surroundings as if to introduce it to me.

“The soul goes on to occupy a different plane of existence. The one you occupy whenever you’re not in control of your body,” he explained, and I looked down at myself. I half expected to be as translucent as Tetsuya but a quick inspection of my limbs disproved that hypothesis.

“So, when I’m not in control, I’m essentially dead?”

Tetsuya shook his head. “Not necessarily. The souls of the dead only occupy this plane until we feel we’re ready to pass on. Here we’re given time to reflect on our lives, relive our own memories, or visit the memories of others who are also on this plane. You’re probably only here because you have nowhere else to go.” 

“All those people…” I began, tongue suddenly feeling too heavy in my mouth. I remembered seeing them but simply dismissed them as fillers for the scenes: men, women, teenagers, _children_.

Tetsuya averted his eyes, and that was all the answer I needed. He walked on, his steps seemingly insignificant, getting him no closer to any particular destination. 

“How come this is the first time I’ve seen other people?”

“I suppose that scene you described earlier was a space to keep your soul contained, to keep it from wandering too far. But you drifted, and now you’re here with the rest of us.”

I didn’t remember the specifics, but I remembered the restlessness, the struggle to get away, to never return, a desire that crept and took hold when it finally dawned that Tetsuya would no longer be there when I woke up.

“I didn’t expect to stay long to be honest,” Tetsuya admitted. “I visited my home, my room, Teikou, Seirin, the stadium…” his lips twisted at the mention of his most precious places, as if unsure which emotion to cling to.

“I was at your house, remembering when you brought us there as a team to celebrate our first Nationals victory together,” Tetsuya’s expression took a morose turn, “then I saw you climbing up the stairs. At first I feared the worst, but then I remembered the other Akashi, and I thought that when the other wasn’t in control then he would be wandering here.”

I looked at Tetsuya’s face, connecting the dots in my head. He eyed me warily, expression growing steadily more grim the longer the silence stretched.

“If this is where people go before they pass on, then is it possible for me to pass on with you?”

-

_Rakuzan’s starting team had occupied Akashi’s bedside, a right they now had as Akashi’s current team. The former Teikou regulars were a sharp contrast to the team huddled close to Akashi’s bed, all sticking close to the wall, scattered across the room in a delicate balance, like repelling magnets in a small box._

_Mibuchi’s long fingers combed across Akashi’s cropped hair, and Midorima busied himself with texting updates to Akashi’s father, whether the man wanted them or not._

-

Tetsuya ran a hand across his face, breathing deeply. “And you wonder why I wanted to make you think this was all just a dream?”

“There’s one more, you know that. Isn’t this better? This way there will only be one Akashi,” I argued, stepping closer to Tetsuya with every word, but unable to close the distance between us. “Better yet, it’ll be the Akashi that people actually care about.”

He frowned. “While it’s true that you two are different people, you still occupy the same body. Like the two lobes of a brain, or two lungs.” 

“A body can survive with one lung, Tetsuya.”

“We’re talking about souls here, not organs, Akashi-kun. He will survive, but barely. He needs you back. You can’t afford to be selfish.”

 _I don’t want to go back_ threatened to rip from my throat but I bit it back. I inhaled a shaky breath.

“Haven’t I already been selfless my whole life?” _if whatever it is I’m living could even pass off as a life_ “Seijuurou was like a brother to me, Tetsuya, everything I ever did was to protect him.”

_This is the only thing I want, the only thing I’ll ever ask for._

_Please._

“Is it so selfish,” I asked, the calmness of my tone belying the line of tension in my body, “to want to be with the only person who’s ever made me happy?” 

Tetsuya said nothing. Even now, at what was possibly the very last time, it was so hard to say it. My throat tightened, and I choked a few times before the words finally forced their way from my lips. 

“I did love you.” I said, clenching my fists, “I never said it, but I did, Tetsuya.”

I looked at his face––his _smiling_ face––and I wasn’t sure if it was the tears that were blurring my view of him or he was really disappearing before my eyes.

“I never needed you to say it, Akashi-kun,” he said, wistfully, “I felt it. In every text, every phone call, every time we went out together, from those times you tried to hold my hand but decided against it at the last minute, the way you looked at me when you thought I wouldn’t notice.”

He pressed his hand against his chest, the spot where his heart no longer beat. “I knew you loved me. I thank you for that.”

And again I was overwhelmed, enough for all my breath to escape in a shuddering gasp. A warm, fluttering feeling grew in my chest, like a butterfly that had finally escaped its cocoon, the simple yet irreplaceable feeling of being loved, one I knew I would never feel again, with Tetsuya gone.

He took two steps, and suddenly he was in front of me, he reached out to gently cup my cheek. I didn’t feel the soft press of skin, but a warm glow, like a ray of sunlight passing through a gap in the curtains. “I will miss you, but I can’t deny you of a life you’ve yet to live. There are people that need you back there more than I need you here.”

-

_“Sei-chan?” A soft, motherly voice cut through the silence, and like a summon, all the heads in the room jerk upwards to the source._

_“Wake up,” Mibuchi whispered, softer this time, cracking slightly at the first vowel. Midorima settled back, disappointed. For a moment, he was sure––_

_“We were going to practice tomorrow, remember?” Mibuchi continued, and Midorima wanted to tell him to _stop_ because _what good was talking to a comatose person going to do_ , but suddenly Hayama jumped up from his seat and dug his fingers into the mattress, jostling Akashi’s sleeping figure slightly. _

_“Yeah, Akashi! If you don’t wake up, it’s gonna be chaos for sure!”_

_“What kind of captain sleeps while the rest of his team suffers through practice?” Mayuzumi followed and Midorima stared at them until realization dawned on him._

_“Akashi, who’s gonna save us when Mibuchi starts bitching at everyone again?” Nebuya groused, and Mibuchi didn’t even even look his way, too focused on Akashi._

_Midorima stood, jerking his chair back and directing the stares of multi-colored eyes to him as he crossed the room and grabbed the railings at the foot of Akashi’s bed._

When did we give up on you? _“Oi, Akashi. Don’t you think you’ve dragged this on for too long? Wake up!”_ When did _I_ give up on you? 

_Soon enough, a cacophony of voices were bouncing off the walls, Midorima thought that soon enough, an irate nurse might come in and ask them to leave, especially if Kise kept up that volume, but he doesn’t care._

_Akashi was still asleep, lost to them, and that just meant they were reaching far enough._

-

I didn’t know how long we stayed like that. I didn’t know how many times I attempted to lay my hands on Tetsuya, only for my hands to sink into the illusion of his body, but eventually, he pulled away, eyes looking at a point, and he smiled.

He lifted his hands to my chest and instead of a push, I felt a pull, far too strong for it to have been just one person.

“Feel that?” Tetsuya whispered, and in his voice, I heard countless more, all calling for me, all begging for me to wake up, to open my eyes. “They’re trying to bring you back.”

My heart clenched when the voices became more recognizable, when my mind attached faces and names to the sobs and choked-up words. Tetsuya’s arms lifted up to wrap around my neck, and I realize for a blessed moment that he was perfectly solid against me. Quickly, I wrapped my own arms around him, reveling in the feel of Tetsuya for the last time.

“It’s time to wake up, Akashi-kun.”

He turned his head just enough to seal our lips together for the first and last time, and it felt too much like the goodbye that we never had, too much like our what-ifs and could-have-beens, tasted like the bittersweetness of a budding relationship that we never even got the chance to nurture or even identify properly. 

-

_I love you too._

-

It was always an odd experience: falling, numbness, then pinpricks from various points, as if my soul was slowly being stitched back into my body. I opened my eyes, and the action was followed by gasps and noises from multiple points in the room. Where was I?

I gathered enough strength to sit up, and the room fell silent again. 

All of them were there, Teikou and Rakuzan, hovering, afraid to touch, to draw near, as if any sudden movements from them would make me lash out like a scared animal.

My gaze scanned across the room––Reo, Eikichi, Kotarou, Chihiro, Atsushi, Daiki, Satsuki, Ryouta, and Shintarou. When our eyes met his eyes widened marginally and I mentally scoffed. Of course he would be scared, they all are.

 _I’m fine._ I wanted to say, but before I could even open my mouth, a shrill, slightly hysterical cry of “Sei-chan!” erupted from my left, and I was enveloped into Reo’s arms.

Like a broken tableau, all of them came rushing forward, cries spilling from their mouths, some with tears in their eyes: relief, elation, joy. And in that moment, a phantom fluttering grew in my chest, expanding until I thought my chest would burst with it.

I opened my mouth but my breath caught in my throat. I bit my lip and tried again.

“I’m sorry,” was what came out, and when those words spilled, so did my tears, and every single emotion I’ve been taught to keep hidden.

“I’m sorry.” I repeated, and I felt that no matter how many times I did, I could never atone for the pain I almost caused them, the pain I _did_ cause them. But none of them drew back, in fact, the embrace grew tighter, and I found myself holding just as tight as they were.

-

Soon, my room was bustling with so much activity that I could hardly keep track. Shintarou and Chihiro were peeling apples, Reo and Ryouta were fretting over my pallor, Atsushi was feeding me spoonfuls of the meal the hospital had prepared, with Eikichi dropping meat into the rice porridge. Kotarou was sprawled across my lap like a lazy cat, nuzzling the side of his head against my abdomen. Satsuki and Daiki were tying back the curtains, saying something or another about how it would do me good.

Eventually, they all had to be escorted out. Midorima’s father’s influence could only do so much to twist the hospital’s rules. They all trickled out with promises to return the next day, taking the energy and life of the room with them. I didn’t find myself dreading the silence they left behind. It seemed less lonely, somehow.

The waning sunlight filtered through the window, and on the windowsill, a red and blue bird sat, chirping sweet notes that followed me into my dreams.


	4. To Another Day

When I opened my eyes, I was greeted not by the pale beige of a hospital ceiling, but by the light blue of the sky. I blinked slowly, trying to recall how I had gotten there, but like a receding tide, it ran away from me until I had nothing.

I felt more than heard him approaching, and I jerked my head to the side to face my other self.

“Seijuurou,” I whispered. He smiled at me and inclined his head.

“Seijuurou,” he greeted in kind.

I breathed a laugh at our small inside joke, a brief comfort for the rawness of my throat. I sat up with his help and his touch sent memories of the past few hours flitting through my mind––the sudden dizziness, passing out, the inability to return, floating in nothingness and unable to move. I shuddered.

Seijuurou continued to support me, understanding. “I suddenly lost control. I didn’t know what happened, or what was happening,” and he frowned at that. The hatred of not knowing, and being unable to do something about it was something we both shared as well.

“Sorry to worry you,” I apologized––how many times have I done that in the past hour alone?––and gently closed my hand around his wrist. His eyelids fluttered shut at the onslaught of memories I passed on and perhaps I should’ve dulled the emotions–– _my_ emotions––but it was too late now, he opened his eyes and there were tears clinging to the edges. Quickly, I brushed them away.

He breathed deeply. Once. Twice, before straightening up and looking every bit the composed Akashi Seijuurou. “Kuroko’s right, you know.”

I smiled sadly at him,“I just had the lecture of my life less than thirty minutes ago. I’d like a break, if you don’t mind.”

He dipped his head in an apology and I indulgently curled my fingers under his jaw, tickling, coaxing a smile, albeit a sad one.

“We haven’t talked in a while.”

My lips quirked in a bitter smile. “Should I be hurt?”

“No.” he said. “I should be guilty.”

The feather-light stroke of my fingers stopped and I looked at him, smile slipping off my face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and clung tight to both my hands. “I just…I never understood how selfish I was being, making you carry the weight of my... _our_ father’s demands. I treated you like a scapegoat.”

“It’s fine.” I reassured. “As the real Akashi––”

“There is no _real_ Akashi.” He snapped, glaring at me with twin red eyes, almost as intense as Tetsuya's own. “There was always meant to be two, even if there only is one body. You have just as much right to be called Akashi Seijuurou as I do.”

I breathed a small, wheezing laugh. Relief? Incredulity? I wasn’t sure. “How is this even going to work?”

He smiled and squeezed my shoulder in a rare show of solidarity. “We’ll figure something out. But right now, there’s something I really want to talk to you about.”

I looked up at his too-serious face, the sudden tension in the atmosphere forcing my back to straighten up a bit more. A hundred things were running through my mind as he opened his mouth…

“What did you do to our _hair_?”

I laughed––an explosive laugh that would have caught even _me_ by surprise but I was too busy trying to catch my breath––and leaned in and nuzzled into his long hair, messing up the fringe and not believing his pout for a second because the next he was laughing as well, reaching out, fingers futilely grabbing on hair far too short to be pulled.

And all around us, the clouds floated along an endless blue sky.


End file.
